Yes, every single business (okay, probably not Zoom) have been negatively impacted by Covid-19. We all feel it and see it everywhere. Empty shops, unemployed people, frustration, etc. It’s crazy, it’s a pandemic, it’s a recession. We all get that.
DISCLAIMER: This is a little bit of a rant, but mostly a solution forcing business owners and brand custodians to rethink how they spend budgets rather than just cutting and dying.
While any SUCCESSFUL business owner, CEO or Marketing Director, know its an obvious mistake to cut your marketing budget, most companies’ leadership team still deem it a good place to make cuts. CFO’s don’t have the luxury of logic.
Marketing, branding and the art of knowing, identifying and connecting to your customers, is still every company’s only lifeline to new customers and clients. I understand that some companies are giving up and are content with their business to just die a slow death during a recession. If you understand the power of marketing and what got you to success in the first place, killing your business in this way is a conscious choice. But for the rest, there is just no excuse or justification.
If you are lying in the hospital, losing blood fast, would a doctor save your life by draining your blood faster or supplying you with more blood? What is the lifeblood of your business keeping it alive? Customers right? Do you need more or less customers in order to stay afloat or even thrive during this time? Freakin’ hell I hope you answered “more customers” here, otherwise I don’t even know how you are physically able to even read this piece.
Businesses cutting off marketing are living in fear of closing down. But if I’m scared of being murdered in a dark alley, I don’t wrap myself in diamonds and walk down that dark alley at 3am in the morning. Do you? You are taking the action that will certainly lead to even less customers and eventual closing the doors on your business. Corporate suicide. “Covid-brain” killing your business.
The following part is only for businesses who haven’t totally given up and can see the opportunity during a recession:
Have you thought of just lowering your marketing spend a bit, and being more savvy as to the actual ways you are spending your budget and acquiring new leads and customers? This is 2020. Not 1980. There are millions of ways to get 10x MORE out of a budget than wasting it for example on media buying.
We create ads yes, but during these times (really during most times since 2010), you need to be more creative than giving your agency free rein to book expensive TV spots or magazine and newspaper ads. Big agencies are not adept to really think outside the box. Big budgets have always just been thrown at them, and the easiest way for the agency to spend that budget, was to blow it on big ad campaigns and take big commissions. Who even watches TV ads anymore?
The same goes for small companies with already tiny budgets. You can get so much more growth by using your budget effectively to build your brand and grow your customer base. You can double your business by just starting with understanding and knowing your market. Creating Personas. “Knowing” them intimately. And if you MUST get on TV, there are more creative and effective ways to do that than “simply” paying for it.
Globecreative is here to help, not rip anyone off. Let’s relook what you are doing before you take your own business out of business.
